Ms. Horwath proposes that if elected premier – which won’t happen, of course – she would appoint a Minister Responsible for Savings and Accountability, whose job would be to find savings of 0.5 per cent annually.
That would be $600-million each year that this minister would find by means yet unknown, and in which departments no one knows. It’s one of many dumb populist pitches that forms the basis of an NDP platform that reflects a party almost completely bereft of a vision for Ontario.
The NDP platform and Ms. Horwath’s speeches are big on cutting the salaries of high-end public-sector executives, shrinking the roster of cabinet ministers and, that old chestnut, “reducing duplication in government agencies.”
This is conservative talk, the notion that government is bloated, run by fat-cat civil servants. If people believe this, no one will vote NDP to solve it. And even if a party did what Ms. Horwath proposes, it would be shaving the top off an iceberg, so paltry would be the savings.
